three men of africa

Adrian is a coloured man from the Karoo. He looks taller because he is thin. His profile is elegant and composed. He speaks precisely and gently and with great feeling. A year ago, his father, with whom he was living, denied paternity. He said, “You are not my son”. Adrian, devastated, moved in with his grandmother. For many weeks he cried when he was alone. Together we spoke the words of the psalmist, “when your father…abandons you, Yahweh will gather you up”. He has forgiven his father and although he no longer sees him, he gives him honour by reporting to him of his progress at work. To give honour to a father is part of his tradition. Adrian is thirty four years old, now looking to other fathers to feed his soul.

Don is white. His intense eyes look out from deep set hollows that look like caves, partly obscured by lush black brows. At seventeen he wound up in prison and served three years. He began studying during periods in solitary confinement. He told a story of adventurous drifting through jobs in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. He took to working on ships. In Maputo he met his wife. Their daughter is at school in Europe and she likes his nomadic life. Some time ago, his grandmother died and left him some money with which he bought some land. Developers have their eye on it but he has a dream that one day he will build a centre for poor kids. Don is a waiter and he lives with other waiters in town. He is forty one years old and remains a rolling stone in his heart, surfing the crags of this strange and beautiful country.

Sandile is a Xhosa black Anglican priest. His huge smiling face gives no hint of age. At the end of coffee in a small courtyard bistro, he stands and prays aloud with us for the people of Africa and the two white visitors and their own little dreams. The diocese has placed him in a downtown apartment in a white area but he will not stay there. Sandile is a true black African. Proud of his ancestry, he tries to draw the “traditional healers” into the Christian narrative refusing to adopt the European view of them as demons. In ancient Israel, the leaders of the Hebrew faith brought the “seers” into the prophetic community as did the Irish with the druids. His passion is to have more Xhosa priests who will mediate the Christian passion with a truly African voice.

Three men of Africa, one in search of a father, one with a dream set like a gem in a piece of land and one with a vision for a Xhosa nation fulfilled. Each looking to a new and distant horizon.